Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]

Meeting date: Thursday, February 1, 2024

Official Report 785KB pdf

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Social Security Scotland

Welcome back. Next is an evidence session with Social Security Scotland, which will explore its performance and operation. Some members of the committee, including myself, had the opportunity to visit Social Security Scotland at its headquarters in Dundee earlier in the month. We found that visit very informative, and it will provide useful background to this session. I welcome to the meeting Gayle Devlin, deputy director for health and social care; Ally MacPhail, deputy director for strategy change, data and engagement; and James Wallace, deputy director for finance and corporate services. Thank you very much for joining us today. Ally MacPhail, I believe you would like to make a short opening statement.

Thank you, convener. As you referenced, I am deputy director for organisational strategy and performance. With me today are Gayle Devlin, deputy director for health and social care, and James Wallace, deputy director for finance and corporate services. You referenced the visit, and most of the committee members have probably already met us in different settings. I would like to set out for the record David Wallace’s apologies that he cannot be here today. Obviously, he wanted to attend and support this session.

We were very pleased to be able to welcome some of you to our headquarters in Dundee a couple of weeks ago, and we are glad that you found it useful. From a personal perspective, I found it a very informative session. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice attended our committee session last week, and I was interested to hear the discussion in that setting. More generally, I welcome the committee’s continuing interest in social security.

I will make a few brief opening remarks—I promise that I will not take long. It has been just over six months since Social Security Scotland last appeared before the committee. During that session, as well as highlighting achievements, David Wallace, our chief executive, was open with members in discussing some of the challenges we faced and the actions that were taken to address them.

The latest statistics for our disability benefits show that we have made real progress with our processing times. We processed more applications for adult and child disability payment in the last quarter than in any period since the benefits launched. Since launch, more than 137,000 people were getting adult disability payment, with around £462 million paid out in cash. More than 71,000 children and young people were receiving child disability payment, with £400 million being paid out for that benefit. We believe that those payments are making a real impact. We are delivering disability benefits differently, in line with our values and our charter. One of the differences in our service is how we evaluate the impact of people’s condition on their daily lives. It is pleasing that our health and social care operations were awarded the policy into practice award at the 10th annual Holyrood Communications Scottish public service awards, in recognition of their work in integrating health and social care professionals into the civil service.

Social Security Scotland is unique in employing qualified nurses, social workers and allied health professionals as civil servants while allowing them to retain their professional registrations. The skill and experience of our health and social care professionals is vital in generating a complete picture of our clients’ needs when they apply for disability benefits. We are seeing an increase in applications for our benefits supporting low-income families, and they continue to be delivered effectively to those who need them.

In November, we successfully launched the pilot of our 14th benefit, carer support payment, and, from February, the eligibility for best start foods will widen. It is estimated that a further 20,000 people will be eligible, which will mean more applications coming into the organisation.

In the middle of December, winter heating payments started. Our internal data, which was published on 9 January, indicates that over 230,000 heating payments have been made to date, and those payments continue. Over 30,000 child winter heating payments have also been issued. Those payments will continue to be made and are based on information supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions.

With the recent budget announcement, we recognise our responsibilities for the important work that we do, with the support of our colleagues and the Scottish Government, and that we have ahead of us as we continue to administer benefits to the people of Scotland effectively, with dignity, fairness and respect.

I will make a couple of final remarks. Of course, there is work still to be done, but we are very pleased that our recent client survey showed that 94 per cent of people rated their overall experience of receiving benefits as good or very good and that 93 per cent of our clients continued to feed back that they were treated with kindness by Social Security Scotland.

We look forward to answering your questions.

Thanks very much. On behalf of the committee, I pass on our regards to David Wallace. Congratulations on the award that you have received—very well done to you and the team for that.

We will now move on to questions, and I will invite some of the members in. The first question is on the theme of operational expenditure, and I invite John Mason in.

My apologies—I did not make the visit to Dundee. I was very keen to come, but, unfortunately, something happened that stopped me.

On the question of your operational expenditure, I think that you have been within budget for the past few years, which is commendable. Can you tell us where you are in the current year, 2023-24, and how you see the budget for operating costs in 2024-25?

I need to make a couple of points. I think that our budget management is good. In its most recent audit report on Social Security Scotland, in 2022-23, Audit Scotland remarked in its key findings that we have effective and appropriate arrangements to secure sound financial management, so I take a lot of assurance personally from Audit Scotland around our financial management processes.

Our financial management is fairly agile—it has to be. We pay a lot of attention to our in-year management of budgets, and our budgets are subject to risk. We are the back end of a large, agile programme to implement the systems and processes for social security, or our part of social security, in Scotland. That creates uncertainty. Over the past few years, Social Security Scotland has grown at a very significant pace, which has given us a particular risk around staffing. There was a period, four years ago, when we had 500 staff, I think. We have pretty much doubled in size every year, which creates huge budget uncertainty, particularly in the context of when we set budgets.

The Scottish Parliament is considering the budget for 2024-25 in January 2024, but the work that Social Security Scotland does for the Scottish Government to inform the budget usually happens in the summer. So, we were basically setting a budget in the summer of 2023 that we potentially will not be spending until the back end of 2025—18 to 20 months away from the point at which we will spend that money.

This year, there will be some amendments to our opening budget through the spring budget revision. They are planned amendments, and the main element in the documentation is the transfer of money to the social security programme. We began the 2023-24 financial year with money that was allocated for improvement to our systems and processes. We have spoken to the committee about that before in the context of supporting improvement in performance times, protecting our operation and continuing to develop it. We work very closely in partnership with the social security programme, as you would expect. Instead of standing up a new digital implementation programme, we will transfer that money to the social security programme in the Scottish Government, which will deliver on our behalf against the priorities of the social security family, as we call it. You will see that partnership working in our budgets.

There is one other change that you will note in the 2023-24 budget. It is as a result of negotiation by the social security programme—again, that partnership working with the DWP—against our formal agreements budget. It has negotiated a saving—I think that it is £4 million—against the amount that we would have spent on formal agreements. That is a very real saving that has been negotiated, and you will see that come through our budget.

Looking forward to next year—

Briefly, if you would. We have a lot of questions.

Sorry—absolutely. Looking forward to 2024-25, we are satisfied that the budget will sustain our operation and allow us to continue to do the things that we need to do: the launch nationally of the carer support payment, the launch of the pension age winter heating payment, preparing for the launch of the pension age disability—

Okay. To follow up, do you have a target for what percentage of the benefits you pay out should be used in your costs? I looked at the DWP website, and I think that around 3 or 4 per cent of its benefits are operational costs. Is that also your target?

It is not, because our benefits are very different. The largest benefit by value that the DWP administers is the state pension, and it is a very easy benefit to administer. You come on at pensionable age and you go off when you unfortunately pass away. The state pension is fairly easy, and our benefits are not like that. Adult disability payment, child disability payment and carer support payment are complex benefits.

I accept that things are changing at the moment and that you are taking on new stuff, so it is quite hard, but should there not be some kind of target? Otherwise is there not a danger that costs will run away with themselves? We look at charities and say that, if they are spending 10 per cent on admin, there is something wrong.

I quite agree. Social Security Scotland is very aware of its responsibility under the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 to deliver value for money. Value for money has three components: the economy of our operation, the efficiency of our operation and the effectiveness of our operation. The type of measure that you describe is a measure of economy only; it is not a measure of value for money. I would caution against using that as the only measure to assess the financial performance of the organisation.

Do you have a benchmark?

We do, and we have published it. The social security programme business case outlines our estimate of what the same benefits cost the DWP to administer, and we estimated that to be 6.3 per cent of benefit expenditure. That is a Scottish Government prepared estimate. It is not a figure that DWP publishes, but it was prepared by some very clever analysts using figures in the public domain. Our estimate in the programme business case was that we would probably, in a steady state, be at around 5.2 per cent of benefit expenditure. I should caution, however, that that is not to say that we will be cheaper than the DWP. That is not what I am trying to say.

All that I want is a figure, so that, when you come back next year, I can ask, “Have you matched the 5.2 per cent?”

Absolutely. We are on track.

Thanks very much. I believe that Jeremy Balfour wants to come in with a supplementary.

Just very quickly, convener, on a couple of things. As a committee, we have looked previously at the number of contractors that you use. I think that there are about 3,800 full-time equivalent staff. How many of them are contractors? I did not visit Dundee last week, but I have been twice. Can you tell us how many of the desks in the Dundee office are used daily? How much are people working at home compared to being in the office? It is a large office.

It is. I will cover the contractors point first. I would need to write to you with the specific number of contractors, Mr Balfour, but I can tell you that the contractors in Social Security Scotland have been working primarily in our chief digital office. They are coders, business analysts and business architects—people with hard-to-recruit skills—and they are people we have struggled to get, given the competition for those types of digital skills. If our chief digital officer was here today, he would tell you about the programme he has been running, working very closely with the people services in our organisation, to swap out contractors.

We have only an hour. If you would write to me, that would be helpful.

Sorry—I will do.

We are perfectly happy to accept something in writing.

And the Dundee office?

I would need to get you a specific up-to-date figure on that, but, in our hybrid working policy, we propose that staff spend two days a week, on average, in the office. We have accommodation across our estate for roughly 1,500 people, and you have cited our staff number. That is why we have gone for the two-day hybrid policy—we have no intention of expanding our estate. I can get you a specific figure.

If you could let me have that, that would be helpful. Thank you.

I will do that.

On how we work slightly differently now, I know that the temptation is to look at desk utilisation, but that is probably not how the organisation is pivoted post-pandemic. Yes, a lot of people come in and sit at a desk to do their job, but we also have an awful lot of people who will come in and collaborate. We use the collaborative spaces that you would have seen when you were in Dundee. We also have a lot of people using the downstairs meeting spaces to meet with stakeholders, so a snapshot of how many people are sitting at a desk at any point in time is probably not representative of how many people are engaging with us in our office environment. It is a measure, but it is perhaps not the only measure of how successful we are with the hybrid working that James Wallace has referenced.

10:30  

We will move on to processing times. Paul O’Kane has some questions.

Good morning to the panel. The committee has been particularly interested in waiting times. In June last year, David Wallace told us that he hoped that, by the end of summer 2023, average processing times for child disability payment would be “under the 80 mark”. The statistical releases for September show that that was still being missed, by about 26 days—the figure was at about 106 days—although the figure subsequently came down in October, to just over 80 days. Can you give us the most up-to-date picture of whether that under 80-day target that Mr Wallace outlined is being maintained?

It is worth saying that there will always be a lag between what we can publish and what we are seeing through our management information. When we spoke to you in the summer, we were at the beginning of a journey of improvement. An awful lot of what we spoke to you about then was about the improvements that we were keen to put in place and about being an organisation that was growing in its capability and confidence and ultimately, hopefully, that seeing its way through into productivity improvements. We are working through that journey, and it is pleasing to see that our productivity is increasing. Unfortunately, I cannot quote management information to you but, internally, we are seeing positive signs that the increased confidence and capability of our staff is feeding through to increased productivity in processing benefits.

Of course, that is not the only measure. The holistic client experience and client outcomes are important, too, but I absolutely hear what you say about the wait times. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a different number from the one that is in the public domain, but, if it gives assurance, I can say that we are seeing improvement, through the metrics that we use internally in our management information, in how that is feeding through into productivity.

I do not know whether there is any specific information that you want.

Are you confident that the numbers will continue to fall and remain below the 80-day mark when we are provided with the next set of management information?

They are trending in the right direction. I am hesitant to say that 80 days is the number that we will hit in the next publication, but we are trending in the right direction.

What has been most effective or has made the most difference in the work that has been done to bring down the wait times?

I will invite Gayle Devlin to say a couple of things. I again stress what we said in June about having brought an awful lot of brand-new people—hundreds of people—into the organisation and having to upskill them on what, as James Wallace said, is an incredibly complex set of benefits. We are now 18 months, in certain instances, into that journey and our staff are much more capable and confident and are better able to run through the processes. Naturally, that has got to us to a better place on productivity, and that will flow through to our organisational performance. That point should not be undersold or lost in the narrative about improvements to systems and various other things. I am not saying that those things are not important, but it is worth mentioning that the organisation is still young and is still building its capability.

Gayle, is there anything more that you want to say on the specifics?

I think that you have covered most of the points, but I would add that there is no one single piece of improvement that impacts—we take a multidisciplinary approach. Using our in-house health and social care team is particularly supportive for faster decision making and for making the right decision. The professionals in that team are integrated into the operational environment, and colleagues are learning about the complex disability benefits that we deliver and the decisions around those.

We have also listened to feedback. The committee members who visited Dundee will have seen that our colleagues and the professionals share information with us to improve the flow of supporting information to the organisation. We have made changes to the application form to support that, too. We are able to flex staff in the particularly busy periods much more pragmatically than we have done in the past. We are concentrating on deploying health and social care expertise in the right places at the right time in the overall decision-making journey.

On the point about developments that have been made, particularly with the adult disability payment, we know that there have been challenges with information from clients coming in quickly. What improvements have been made in that process to ensure that, if somebody has information, they share it as quickly as possible?

We offer several pieces of guidance and support. Our local delivery colleagues are very active in the community in every local authority area in supporting clients to provide that information. On the application form, we have improved the details on what good supporting information looks like—I think that we mentioned that to the committee when we were here previously. We have made significant inroads into that. There are also relationships with teams in local authorities who work in education and healthcare settings, and with welfare rights advisers, which are about supporting clients in bringing forward information.

We have a range of initiatives and have made improvements to allow us to gather that information and support our clients in providing the right level of information.

Thank you.

One of the changes that we were going to make was that, rather than the claimant having to get the information, the agency would get it. Part of that was about general practitioner reports, but there was concern about whether GPs would respond quickly and whether the amount that you were paying for each report was enough. Will you update us on that? Is part of the delay because GPs are taking longer to reply?

One of the things we spoke about during the visit to Dundee was the interface between us and GPs, and it is probably worth reflecting on that. That has been significant for us, because it gives us a secure exchange of data. That is not new technology that we put in place; it was already used in the healthcare sector to enable GPs to exchange data with hospital services. That has been helpful for us, but we have been on a bit of journey with it, in terms of how we use it and how GPs interact with us through that. We have done an awful lot with practice managers and GPs to make sure that they understand how that is best used, the information that we need and how we can best communicate. We have done an awful lot on that engagement piece.

It has been an evolution. Since launch, a lot of what we have done has been a journey of continuous improvement to understand what we need, how we best obtain it and how we best use that and engage with stakeholders, such as GPs, the social care sector and third sector providers, to best provide that. You referenced the fee that we now provide to stakeholders, which has been helpful. It has improved.

Can you give us some figures? Going back to Mr Mason’s point, this is difficult for us as a committee. I say nicely that that was a very good civil servant’s answer, but I am not sure that I am any further forward. Can you tell us what the situation was like two years ago, last year and this year, so that we can see the improvement, and what your target is for next year? It is difficult to know from what you have said so far. Yes, there is improvement, but is it half a day better or is it substantially better?

To clarify, are you asking about the time that it takes for the exchange of information and the success rate of that?

Yes.

I do not have that information to hand, unless one of my colleagues does. We can potentially follow up on that with a note that provides further context.

Okay.

I suspect that you will probably need to write to us on the next area that I want to ask about. Another change that we were going to make was to have much less requirement to have individuals come in to be assessed medically. What percentage of people who make a new application or have been transferred from personal independence payment are now being examined?

I do not know the figures on that consultation piece. Do you have that information, Gayle?

I do not have the specific figure, but I can share it with the committee in a written note. However, it is a very small proportion. The system was not designed to automatically go to a face-to-face consultation. As you know, that was designed very much with our clients in the service design process. A very small proportion of our clients undertake a face-to-face consultation. They can request that, but our first port of call is to assess the information that they give us and make a decision on that before we move to a consultation.

If we could have the numbers, that would be helpful.

Yes.

Hello, everyone—it is nice to see you again. Thank you very much for the great visit the other week.

I will be blunt: why does it take longer to process child disability payments than it takes to process adult disability payments? It is a very simple question.

I should start by saying that we are giving the same attention to, and putting in place the same improvements for, child disability payment as we are for adult disability payment. They are different but, when it is appropriate to do that, we are doing it. Similarly, we see encouraging signs on productivity and on the confidence among staff—I spoke about that earlier, so I will not labour the point.

We are working to understand the case load better and how it differs from adult disability payment. To be open, we have a slightly higher number of complex older cases in the child disability case load—those are cases where we need to work through certain issues before we can make a decision and potentially a payment thereafter. There are issues such as identifying and confirming parental responsibility, which clearly can be challenging in some instances. While we are doing that, we continue to engage with our clients, so it is not as if we are doing it and leaving them in a vacuum. We actively engage as we work through that, but, understandably, it can take some time.

That is one example. I do not know whether Gayle Devlin wants to add something on the differences between the child and adult payments.

The simple answer is that disability benefits are complex and child disability payment is no different. It is a complex landscape and we have a duty to consider all the information with which we are provided and that we collect. We can, and often do, collect that from a broad range of sources.

Child disability payment is quite dissimilar to adult disability payment in some cases. We collect information, or in some cases our clients give us information on behalf of their child, from multiple professionals across education and schools, clinical and medical professionals, mental health specialists and community services. It is our absolute obligation and duty to consider all of that information, and that takes time. We need to make a proper assessment of the impact on the daily living needs of a child.

My next question follows on from that. The committee has concerns about getting information through the GP gateway process. There needs to be a movement towards making sure that the numbers come closer together, because we want to make that process as smooth as possible. The more information you have to gather and check, the more important it is to make sure that the communication streams work in a timely manner.

How are you making sure that we can move forward in a way that will bring those numbers together? Is there anything that can be done to ensure that the information that you are getting is properly assessed but quicker, and that you can get the information that you need from external sources as smoothly and as quickly as possible?

I will just intervene here. On the committee’s visit to Dundee, we discussed the SCI—Scottish care information—gateway process. An action point that I suggest for the committee is to write to the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care about primary care and GP services using the SCI gateway network. I do not think that it is incumbent on Social Security Scotland to push forward that agenda. I suggest that we write to the health secretary to ask him to look into that and consider how we can incentivise GP services to use that process consistently.

10:45  

I understand that. My apologies, convener, if my question was not put in the correct way. I accept that we have concerns with the GP gateway—we are agreed on that. I was thinking that, when Social Security Scotland is getting additional information that is not from a health process—from education, for example—I hope that that is as smooth as possible. That is what I was referring to, rather than the gateway process. I am happy with your suggestion, convener, but we should also ensure that education and other parts of government are aware of the need for a smooth process.

I am happy to do that if that issue is highlighted within social security. Ally MacPhail is welcome to comment on that.

That is helpful, convener.

I want to say that, in the improvement work that we are undertaking, we have not put child disability payment to the side—we are giving it the same priority and attention as we are giving adult disability payment. We are giving the same due care and attention to how we upskill our staff to get through the process and support our clients and to interrogating what we can do to streamline the process and work with various stakeholders and providers of supporting information to make the process as easy and efficient as possible. With child disability payment, that is just taking that little bit more time because of some of the complexities that we have discussed. However, please be assured that we are prioritising that work.

Can you share any initial reflections on processing carer support payment applications?

The carer support payment pilot started as planned at the end of November in three local authority areas: Dundee City, Perth and Kinross and the Western Isles. On initial reflections, in the first update that we provided through management information on our website, which I think was published at the end of December, 160 applications had been received at that date, 55 had been processed and 25 payments had been made to clients.

Obviously, the numbers are very small at this stage and we are continuing to see the applications flow through. It is a pilot and, as with any of the benefits that we have launched, we are taking applications, processing them and engaging with clients as we do that to learn the unique needs relating to their circumstances, but we are also speaking to our colleagues with experience in the social security programme and in a policy context about how we can move the pilot towards a national launch.

There is not a whole lot that I can say other than it is going well for the small numbers that we have seen to date.

I hope that, as time progresses, we will get additional information.

We can certainly update you.

Thank you.

On the theme of communications with clients, I will bring in Paul O’Kane.

The committee is interested in the challenges in people getting support and advice—in particular, on the telephone. There seem to be stubborn and persistent issues with telephony, year on year. Do you recognise those persistent issues? Can you give an overview of what more has been done to address them?

On persistency, we continue to work to improve our services. So, to be completely honest, I disagree with and challenge slightly the idea that we should categorise issues as “persistent”. We have made real progress since the last time we discussed the matter, when we set out some of the improvement actions that we were putting in place, particularly around telephony. In our client feedback, seven in 10 said that they feel that it is easy to contact people within the organisation, eight in 10 feel that they are receiving the right level of communication, and around nine in 10 said that their experience of the overall application process has been positive. On the point about holistic services, I think that that speaks quite positively to our clients’ view of how we are engaging with them.

Telephony is probably at the core of the question that you are asking. We have embedded changes in the way that we handle calls, which has improved real-time monitoring of call volumes. We are much more responsive now in how we deploy our resource. I think that it is fair to say, from our management information, that we are seeing the benefit of that across all our benefit lines.

As you would expect with any organisation of our nature, such things are key metrics that we monitor, and key things that we engage with our staff on, in management of performance. How we engage with our clients and our clients’ ability to engage with us are absolute priorities for us. That is the lifeblood of what we do.

I will challenge a little the idea that we have persistent issues, because we have made real strides forward. I do not know whether my colleagues want to add anything.

Yes—there is a point to make about real-time data. We now have telephony dashboards, and David Wallace mentioned last time at committee the ability to deploy our planning team to address variations in demand. That is embedded now, and we have real-time alerts on the telephony system, which allows our planning team to direct additional more flexible resource. We have more people trained for phone calls who are adaptable and flexible in order that we are able to work with busy queues and can track peak demand. We hope that that comes through in improved call-waiting times. It looks as if it is improving our internal information.

It would be useful to the committee to have that information as soon as possible, because I think that we can say that, across 2022-23, there have been persistent issues. If that situation has improved and there is data to show that, it would be useful to see it.

Can I ask about partner agencies?

Yes—if the question is quick and concise. I am conscious of the time—we still have quite a lot of members wanting to come in with questions. Thanks.

Okay. I will wrap this up into one question if I can.

Partner agencies have real challenges in getting through—they have said that in the survey work that you have done—and I am keen to know what has been done on that. The other issue that I want to raise is that, as MSPs, we do not have a dedicated line that our offices can contact when we receive issues from constituents. The DWP has such a line. What consideration has been given to that?

I will pick up on the point about partners contacting on clients’ behalf. We have updated our guidance regarding client representatives for our client-facing colleagues and have published that guidance on our corporate website. There is lots of guidance on client representation now, including third-party representation. We have shared that right across our stakeholder groups. The information was published in October or November last year.

We acknowledge that welfare advisers have faced difficulties with delays, so I am sure that the new guidance will support them much more clearly in respect of what they can contact us about on behalf of a client.

I will pick up on the point about MSP calls. We have available a line for MSPs and constituency workers to contact us on. Some of the feedback that we have had recently has been around whether we can accept email for direct correspondence. We are able to do that in certain instances through our chief executive mailbox. That is only in certain instances, so we are actively looking at that.

Thanks for the clarity. It was email that I was referring to. That is helpful.

I invite in Katy Clark, who is joining us remotely.

What is Social Security Scotland doing to ensure that all client-facing staff know how to refer clients with disabilities to VoiceAbility advocacy services?

We have produced internal guidance for our client-facing staff that provides details on the advocacy service and how it supports people with disabilities to access and apply for our benefits. The guidance also provides details on how to make a direct referral to VoiceAbility via an online referral portal. Client-facing staff will, when it is appropriate, raise awareness of that service for clients on the phone.

Are you convinced that that is working well? Do you see any problems?

We continue to work with policy officials. VoiceAbility is a contract that is managed by our Scottish Government colleagues, but our own local delivery teams interact with VoiceAbility. VoiceAbility interacts with our stakeholders quite significantly, and we have seen clients being referred to it through third-party partners, too. One hundred per cent of referrals from Social Security Scotland and others went forward to become cases in the last quarter.

Thank you.

We move on to case transfer, on which I invite Jeremy Balfour in.

From the figures, I think that there were 350,000 cases in total to be transferred from the DWP to Social Security Scotland. I declare at this point that I am on personal independence payment and am waiting to be transferred. My understanding from your figures is that 74,785 cases have been completed, which leaves 275,000 roughly to be completed by the end of next year. From my basic arithmetic, that means you will have to transfer 13,750 cases a month to reach that target. Will you do it?

There is probably reference in the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing to an Audit Scotland report that expresses some concern about that. We have moved on quite a bit since that report was written and have taken on board some of the recommendations.

In total, about 700,000 individuals are transferring into our system. Of course, we will check that. If I have that wrong, we can write to you and confirm it. We are prioritising safe and secure transfer, and we are absolutely on track to do that by the end of 2025, as per the plans that we are working on with the DWP. That is not to say that the work is not significant and not complex, or that we have not had some challenges that you would expect in a huge interface of data between two Government departments. We have learned from those challenges. Every time we have done that, we have iterated and continuously improved what we do.

The volumes that we are transferring monthly now are much greater than they were for, say, the child disability payment. Child disability payment case transfer is complete. Case transfers for all the support payments are going well and transfer is going according to plan. Arrangements are in place to start the transfer of carer support payments—I think, from this month.

Again, it would be interesting to get the figures. Could you give us a breakdown in writing of the monthly transfers for the past 12 months and what you expect will be the number of monthly transfers for this calendar year? How many are you expecting to transfer in February, March, April, May, June, and so on? You say that you are on target, but, from the figures that we have, it looks as though, if you continue at the pace that you are going at at the moment, you will fall well short. I presume that there will be an improvement over the next 18 months. I am interested in seeing how you are modelling for those 18 months with all the other work that you have as well.

That is fine. The modelling of that and the technical support around it are probably for our Scottish Government colleagues in the social security directorate to address, but we can clarify some of that and put it in a note to the committee if that would be helpful.

That would be really helpful. On estimating levels of fraud and error, I invite Bob Doris in.

Good morning.

My understanding is that levels of fraud are relatively low, as far as we know, but there will have to be robust processes and procedures in this country soon anyway, because the legislation will require Social Security Scotland to request that clients provide information for audit purposes. How does the agency intend to use the new powers, proportionately and appropriately, to help to estimate client-induced fraud and error?

11:00  

As part of my responsibilities in Social Security Scotland, I look after counter-fraud and error. I will mention a response to an Audit Scotland recommendation that has been made over a number of years. In fact, I think that I have spoken to the committee about the recommendation, which is that we need to understand the levels of fraud and error in our case load.

We had started work on that back in 2020, then Covid happened and all our analyst resource was pushed on to other priorities, as one might expect. That was required. Post Covid, we have those analysts back and have started work on producing the methodology to prepare the statistical estimates. They will be statistical estimates, not a deterrent to fraud and error. It will be an audit process to understand our case load and what statistical estimates of fraud and error in that case load might be.

As things stand today, we rely heavily on DWP-prepared statistics. As Mr Balfour touched on, we are engaged in case transfer. Social Security Scotland did not make the decision; the DWP made the decision, so its rates of fraud and error will apply to the Social Security Scotland case load post transfer then, over time, our rate of fraud and error, which might be different from the DWP’s, will enter our case load. It will take a number of years for that to happen as the stock of cases flows out of eligibility and new cases flow in—

I apologise for cutting across you.

That is okay.

I suppose that we will get a bit more detail at a later date anyway, but can you give an example of the client information that you might require, not to interrogate an individual but in order to use their data to get a feeling of what fraud looks like among agency claimants more generally? Can you give me an actual example? Then we can move on to the next question.

The key point is interaction with the client. There is a key difference between a measure of official error and a measure of client-induced error or fraud. We must speak to the client because we will have data in our system that might not be current. It might not have been updated by the client in previous years, so we need to speak to the client to understand whether what they told us two years ago or five years ago or 10 years ago is still the case. The Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill will allow us to interact with the client.

Will that be done proportionately and respectfully, and will it be a reasonable request to make of the client?

Absolutely. Other benefit organisations make such requests. It is the only way of measuring fraud and error, because clients would otherwise self-select out, but the values of dignity, fairness and respect will run right through the process and no one will lose eligibility as a result of being in a sample. The agency’s existing processes will apply.

In the year ahead, we will see completion of the roll-out of the carer support payment, following the pilot. We will also see new pension-age benefits being introduced. I am conscious that the case load for pension-age winter heating payments will be around 1 million claimants. That is far in excess of any other benefit that Social Security Scotland has had to cope with. I am not casting any aspersions, but it is reasonable for us to ask: are you prepared for that, are you confident and is planning going well?

That is probably something on which, to give full assurance, we would like to provide written advice if that would be helpful.

It is worth saying specifically that the pension age winter heating payment is not an application-based payment. We have experience from the past—specifically of the winter heating payment. It is the obvious example. There has been an awful lot of learning. The case load that you mentioned is a big number, but so was the case load for the winter heating payment.

We have experience of processing such payments. We have been able to do that successfully; this is the second year in which we have been doing it. Planning is on-going—it is probably not happening directly with us at the moment but is more in a policy and programme context relating to some of the technology. If doing so is fine with members, we propose to write to you on that.

We would welcome that, Mr MacPhail. I take it from your comments that you are making the point that, although the scale is substantial, the complexity does not give you any concerns at this stage.

I am not downplaying the complexity of anything that we do, but the work is a known entity. So, although it is a big number, we understand how we will deal with it and we have plans for how we will do so.

Thank you.

We will now focus on how you can improve your systems. I call Marie McNair.

I have some questions about how cases are processed, and they also relate to the issue of redeterminations, which I have previously pursued with you. How are any emerging terminal illness cases that are identified as part of the transfer process dealt with, given that the award under ADP can be more generous than PIP?

Are you talking about redeterminations? I am sorry—can you just clarify the question?

I will be following up with that, yes, but my first question is about terminally ill cases.

That are transferring.

Yes, they are transferring, so they are obviously picked up for the transfer process.

Absolutely. I do not have that information to hand right at this minute, but I am happy to update you in a written note if that would be acceptable.

That would be really helpful. We would be interested in seeing that.

As for redeterminations, how many unsuccessful decisions are ending up in redetermination and appeal? Again, if you do not have that figure, can you write to the committee with it? I would be very interested in that.

I actually do have that figure. According to our latest publication, 13.5 per cent of first decisions reach a redetermination, with a smaller percentage reaching appeal thereafter.

We all believe in a human rights approach, and obviously a redetermination and appeal process will be a strong part of that, but it has been suggested to me that Social Security Scotland is acting in a way that deters claimants from pursuing a challenge to negative decisions. Can you comment on that? If that is not the case, can you talk us through how claimants are being assisted in pursuing their redetermination and appeal rights?

Absolutely. A redetermination form is included in all of our first decision letters, so all our applicants and clients who get a decision letter also receive information on how to apply for a redetermination and an appeal thereafter. The letter also signposts clients to support that can be accessed not just on our corporate website but through Citizens Advice Scotland and other stakeholders.

Every client who receives a first decision letter gets those details. Thereafter, a dedicated redeterminations team can support the client through the conversation, and we also have regular phone contact with our clients during redetermination and appeal.

It might be helpful to take this issue up with you offline.

Okay.

I think that that concludes our questions for today, unless—[Interruption.] I see Jeremy Balfour. Did you want to come in with a supplementary, Jeremy?

I have been well behaved, convener.

We have a bit of time in hand.

I will be very quick.

I want to go back to a previous issue that I was interested in but that we moved on quite quickly from—your client surveys. We, as MSPs, get only the bad news, and Twitter is perhaps not the best place to look at what is happening. How do you decide who gets to fill out an assessment of how you did? Is it a random selection? Obviously, your figures are very high with regard to people being very pleased with your services, but how do you choose people to fill out the forms?

As I understand it—again, I will clarify this if I am wrong—everybody gets the opportunity to do that. Anybody who goes through the process gets the opportunity at the application stage and, I think, at the decision stage to feed back on their interaction with us and on their experience of us an organisation. We do not discriminate and send that sort of thing only to certain individuals—that is not the case.

Okay. Thank you.

Does that conclude everything? [Interruption.] Ah, right—Camilla Kidner from SPICe would like to come in. Did you want to comment? [Interruption.] My apologies—there was a bit of confusion there.

Could Social Security Scotland give examples of the type of system improvements that are being prioritised in your on-going strategy, particularly with regard to the SPM case management system?

Absolutely. I can say something about that.

I will not get into the technical detail but, just in very broad terms, we have in recent system releases focused on automation, where possible, to reduce manual workarounds. We have also taken steps to improve accessibility to benefit client experience in our internal systems but predominantly in our online platforms for disability benefits.

Beyond that, an awful lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes that is quite technical in nature but that enhances the system infrastructure and security to ensure that what we are doing remains critical and safe. That system security and infrastructure piece is critical—indeed, I am sure that we will all have seen the various recent press reports about cyberattacks—and we do an awful lot on that through the course of the year. That stuff does not get seen—to be fair, it is only natural that we do not shout about it—but there is an awful lot of work in that respect as we continuously improve our systems.

I do not know whether that is what you are looking for. It might not be the most exciting answer, but it is the reality of what we are doing.

I imagine that the priorities will change, depending on what benefits are coming through and what is transitioning. How often do you look at that? Is that one of the KPIs that you look at regularly?

In that system development piece, we work with our colleagues in the social security programme on the main releases of technology that, because we are an organisation that is moving forward and expanding services, are quite often focused on the next thing that we need to deliver.

What I think that you are talking about is the continuous improvement cycle. We do that iteratively by engaging, whether through client panels, our own people or in forums such as this, and the feedback that we get helps us to prioritise the actions that we will take and the budget that we will spend on continuous improvement activity. I go back to my example of reducing manual processes and bringing in automation. Clearly, we are doing that not just to drive efficiency and improve performance but to support our staff in using our systems in a more efficient, better and job-enriching way.

The Audit Scotland recommendations also highlighted the issue of technical debt. Can you give a clearer idea of the scale and nature of that issue at the moment? How are you addressing it?

I will take that question, convener, if that is okay.

Technical debt is a consequence of agile working, and expediting delivery will have consequences down the line. Usually we will know about them, and the way in which we address the matter—this builds on what Ally MacPhail has just said—is through our continuous improvement process.

As I have already said, we work very closely with our social security programme colleagues. We have a single prioritised backlog of the things that we wish to do in the future, and any technical debt or other type of improvement that might be identified—say, future automation—is added on to that backlog, which we then work through jointly.

It is an on-going process. As we still have benefits to transfer, we will probably not have a real sense of the totality of technical debt until we are through that finalised process of devolution. However, we certainly understand it, and that understanding is continuing to evolve all the time.

Thank you very much. I believe that Bob Doris has a small supplementary, but I would just say that I am conscious of the time.

It is a minute supplementary, convener, and it was inspired by your own question.

The convener asked about systems improvements that are prioritised. We have a large workforce in Social Security Scotland, a lot of whom moved over from the DWP and took the opportunity to put in place new innovations. What role does the workforce have in suggesting innovations and systems improvements? After all, they are the ones who are at the coalface and who have to deal with the reality of how the systems work. Anything you can put on the record about that would be quite helpful.

As you would expect, and as with any organisation, that continuous improvement and staff feedback cycle in relation to what we are doing is absolutely embedded. Yesterday, I was speaking to our chief digital officer, Andy McClintock, who has been very visible about owning that and will be doing what I think he is calling staff roadshows over the next couple of months. Even at that level, he is hearing directly from staff about what they are doing, about how they are engaging with the systems and—just to be completely open—about some of the challenges that they might be facing in engaging with that. That cascades all the way down with regard to how we want to engage with the issue as an organisation.

Thank you.

That concludes our questions, and I thank you all for attending.

That concludes the evidence session and our public business for today. We now move into private session to consider the remaining items on the agenda.

11:15 Meeting continued in private until 11:40.